


The Second Dance

by BethCGPhoenix



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-15
Updated: 2010-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:52:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethCGPhoenix/pseuds/BethCGPhoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Gaeta danced with an Eight, it was Colonial Day. The second time goes a little differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Second Dance

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Veronica as part of [**milliways_bar**](http://community.livejournal.com/milliways_bar/)'s auction to benefit Haiti. Her prompt: _You know that scene the writers were planning to do in "Unfinished Business," but ultimately decided against, with Sharon Agathon ultimately hitting Gaeta? ... something like that._

Control lies at the root of any tactic. Self-control; control of others; control of a situation.

Gaeta's not sure if it's a poor tactic or a good one when, at the dance, he yanks his tags off and drops them in the jar.

* * *

Here, then, is the necessary data: there are twenty-three people in the Fleet he can name, without once laboring over which names to pick, who want to pummel the frak out of him. One tactical conclusion to draw: maybe it's better to call them out first. Maybe it's best to call out someone who's not expecting it.

Gaeta sheds his BDU jacket and slips between the ropes of the ring, tapping his gloves together. "Athena!" he finally yells over the catcalls. "Lieutenant Agathon!"

Athena's head comes up, clearly startled; so does Helo's right alongside her. Gaeta just smiles -- smirks, in fact -- and spreads his arms with a bravado he doesn't feel as the shouting crescendos around him.

She gets her wrists taped up within minutes and ducks into the ring thirty seconds after that. "Gaeta, what the hell?" she whispers as she slots her mouthguard in place.

That's all she gets out before he takes the first swing.

Cheering erupts on all sides. Athena twists into an easy dodge, and they begin the slow circle of the dance, her testing with a quick jab, him parrying it, back and forth, settling into an easy rolling rhythm. Words don't flow as easily with their mouthguards blocking the way; Gaeta makes a try of it anyway.

"I don't owe you an explanation," he tells her in belated response to the question. "Whole point, right?"

She responds with a hit he quickly deflects, but one that, he notes, has a little more heat behind it than the first few. He weaves toward the ropes. "Something you gotta get used to. Part of the rank." Another jab, less of a test this time. "Don't think you'll be getting a lot of those anyway, though."

She snorts out her annoyance. "Really, that's where you're going?" she mutters around the plastic.

Sizing up his next move, Gaeta darts forward like he hasn't heard her. "Anybody accidentally call you 'Boomer' yet?"

She hooks a sharp blow toward his jaw. He spins, letting it ram into his shoulder; _good,_ he hears himself think. "How's that feel?" he challenges. "Leaving Cylons for people who're gonna see _her_ \-- " A punch thrown to her face that lands on her quickly raised wrist. "Every time they look at you?"

"Looks like you're not having any trouble seeing me -- "

He can, and he doesn't twist away to avoid the hit to his stomach. Gaeta drops to one knee, spots in his eyes and his glove fisted against the mat; he drags in a breath like reeling in a lifeline and shoves himself back to standing. The boos of the crowd slap against his ears. He ignores it.

"They won't trust you," he gasps, and lowers his gloves enough to meet her eyes. "Ever. Didn't even want to trust you with a kid."

Just in time, he ducks to avoid the next swing, only to straighten and turn right back into it. "You ever get -- " Another struggling breath. "An explanation about that either?"

Something snaps, dimly. In the space between sound and pain, he thinks, _that was my nose,_ and feels the ropes give way under his shoulders. The back of his tongue tastes metallic and bloody. And still, the quiet voice keeps murmuring, _good,_ and he bares his teeth in a grin as he says, "Guess not."

Gaeta stumbles to the ring's center. By now, it's pretense only: he wobbles a little on his feet from the blow. Every line of Athena's body stretches tight as wire, as cabling, as the arc of a transistor, and she hisses out each furious breath between teeth clamped tight on her mouthguard. "What the _frak,_ " she snarls at him.

"If they couldn't trust you with her life they won't trust you with theirs. Pilot goes down, you won't save him." Lights keep swimming in front of his eyes; he blinks them away and drags a glove under his nose to clear the streaks of blood. "You're never going to save anyone."

Her fist slams into his eye. Another drives up into his ribs. Gaeta falls. If he thinks of paper filled with neat columns of names, the rising compulsive chant between his ears -- _good. good._ \-- obscures it.

"You couldn't even save Hera," he coughs, and Athena shoves him into the corner of the ring hard enough for him to crack his head against the post. He counts the blows that follow: nineteen in all, falling on his head and his arms and the soft fleshy parts of his stomach. His right eye's already swelling shut; his left hazes over with red and black as the pain finally burns a hot line to the forefront.

Tigh has to haul her off of him, yelling that the bout's over. Cottle's face swims into focus above him.

Gaeta spits out his mouthguard -- and a substantial amount of blood to go with it, and what he hopes like frak isn't one of his back teeth -- and croaks, "'S that all?" before he passes out.

* * *

He wakes up in sickbay with three stitches in his forehead, a pack of ice pressed over his swollen eye, and not a single spot on him that isn't hurting in some way. Gaeta swallows back a groan and shuts his good eye. A quiet clink on the bedside table makes him open it again.

"You forgot those," says Athena. She lets the rest of the tags' chain slide between her fingers to pool on the table.

When Gaeta closes his eye, it isn't against any sort of physical pain. "Thank you, sir," he mumbles.

"So now I get a 'sir'?"

He can't read her voice at all, whether due to his pounding headache or because of how toneless she's keeping it. Much as he wants to nod in lieu of speaking aloud, he knows it would be a bad idea. "Yes, sir," he rasps instead; it sounds far more like _I'm sorry._

The ensuing silence lasts long enough that he thinks, for a moment, she's left the room. When she does speak, it startles him into jerking his eye open.

"I'm not your punching bag, Felix," she says shortly. "And you're not mine."

He swallows. It leaves an aching trail down his neck, inside and out. "I know."

"You sure about that?"

The sore lump in his throat hasn't abated enough to speak. Gaeta chances a nod, biting back a wince as it jars one of the knots on his head.

Sharon's gaze, set hard as alloy, doesn't waver. "I don't know what the frak that was about," she says at last, "but save it for the people who deserve it. I'm sorry for whatever you went through. That doesn't give you an excuse."

With no further word, she turns, brushes the curtains aside, and walks out. Gaeta listens to the retreating footsteps, the clatter of medical equipment, the distant beep of a heart monitor.

It takes a few tries before he can reach far enough -- and straight enough -- to grasp his tags. The edges dig out tiny dents in his palm.

He doesn't put them on until he's discharged.


End file.
